Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

Wow. I love Sally Hepworth’s books. I love them so much that I typically devour them in one sitting, and this one was no exception.

She has an ability to write a family drama that keeps me interested, without making me too anxious for the well-being of the characters. I loved the characters in this one - especially the female characters (although Darcy made me smile) - even Heather, the younger wife.

The ending made me uncomfortable, and I didn’t love it (but that’s probably the point) but it didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment.

Holy wow did I love this book! Am now a #sallyfanforlife 😍 The suspense kept me holding my breath as I read the book. This is definitely a book I could not put down.

Sally Hepworth has quickly become one of my favorite authors!

Anyone would be shocked to find out their father is getting remarried to a much younger woman - especially when he's still married to their mother....

I loved the multiple perspectives of daughters' Tully and Rachel as well as the new wife to be Heather. Sally Hepworth always writes a great family suspense! All three women's characters are well developed and very relatable.

Where do I even begin? I have been a HUGE Sally Hepworth fan for SO long and this was one of my all time faves. This book is a twisted tale with many Thrills and Pyscological twists!

Steve is getting married and what should be the happiest of times for him is far from happy. Not only is Steve getting married, he already IS married!

Steve comes up with a plan to divorce his first wife who is in a facility for dementia. How far will this plan go and will this marriage even happen?

I loved this book so much! BRAVO Sally!

The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth caught my interest from the beginning and kept me guessing until the end. Imagine your father marries a woman younger than you - would you trust she's marrying him for the right reasons? Or then, when family secrets and mysteries come to light, do you stop trusting your own judgment? This was a fast-paced, expertly executed family drama. Highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review an advanced reader's copy of this book.

5 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟Very good! Will definitely be recommending this book on my Instagram bookstagram account.

I loved Sally Hepworth’s book The Good Sister. I rated that one 5/5. Unfortunately this one fell flat for me, rounding up my 2.5 to a 3/5 because I do feel like Sally Hepworth is a good writer…I just feel there were so many missed opportunities or greatness in this book.

There was a lot of potential and all sorts of things that just weren’t capitalized upon.

For instance, Rachel’s dark secret. She held it close to her without telling a soul for YEARS. However she eventually tells those who become closest to her and that’s it. Nothing really happens with this big secret. For this particular secret…it’s a big deal and prob could’ve been either more focused on in the story or just cut entirely because it literally has no importance when it comes to the plot.

Was Stephen a bad husband/parented? Was there abuse!l? Were the characters delusional? Who knows!?

Fiona Arthur…her character really didn’t end up being that important for the trajectory of the story. Another missed opportunity.

Does Heather (the younger wife) have a dark secret for why she is with an older man? Is she a gold digger!? Nope, nothing much there either. She has a secret but again, it’s not anything major.

Tully has some serious issues with kleptomania that sorta starts developing into something good for the story…when Tully and Heather bond a bit during a therapeutic scene returning items that were stolen. This helped with forging a bond between the daughter and soon to be step mother.

I didn’t hate the book but was unsatisfied. I’d absolutely read another book by Sally Hepworth again…but this one was a “miss” for me.

How would you feel if your Dad tells you he’s engaged, to a woman younger than you are, oh an by the way, he is divorcing you mother with dementia? I know how’d I feel and happy would not be the word, but maybe that’s just me, maybe not. I’d definitely be suspicious of this new woman in Dad’s life.

Tully and Rachel are facing just this situation with their father. This is a family just as disfunctional as most families. They have secrets, they have their own personal issues that they refuse to admit to, and they also want to dig into this woman’s reason for marrying Dad. Is she a gold-digger? You’ll have to read the book to uncover all the delightful twists and turns this story takes.

I did enjoy this book but it was a bit of a slower read for me. I would definitely recommend you give it a read.

Thank you to #netgalley, #stsimonpublishing and #sallyhepworth for allowing me the opportunity to read this book!

So…. I’m still thinking about this one. I absolutely love Sally Hepworth’s writing. This one is told from 3 women’s perspectives—2 sisters & the new wife’s. I really enjoyed their varying points of view. I definitely wouldn’t call this a thriller, but it was an excellent family drama. I wasn’t *quite* on board with the ending, some of the characters actions didn’t really ring true, but I *did* enjoy the ambiguity. All in all, another winner for Sally!

Sally has done it again! WOW! I love her functional dysfunctional families. I'm a Sally Hepworth fan for life.

I love the sisters perspective. So many twists and turns.

I raced through this book, it was a well-plotted family mystery that tackled some tricky topics very adeptly. It definitely will appeal to fans of the author's previous suspense novels, as well as fans of Liane Moriarty.

This book follows three young women, all around the same age. The difference? Two of them are sisters, one is their father's newest love. What's the issue? Well, their father is still married to their mom and she's in a care facility for dementia.

With their father's new girlfriend, comes some new information. Their mom can't speak clearly anymore but the new girl can. Family secrets are dangerous and eventually will surface... will it be too late?

I loved this book so much. I enjoyed the different point of views throughout the story and I loved each of the characters and their quirks. I would've given this 5 stars if the ending was more shocking...but I did see it coming. It was a fairly quick read!

Triggers:
Domestic voilence
Covid 19

I didn't want to put the book down. Definitely will be reading another of Sally Hepworth's books in the future!

I love Sally Hepworth's books. She is such a fantastic writer who weaves some incredible stories with amazing characters and fun twists.

This one is the same. The Younger Wife begins with Stephen Aston getting married. Again. He has 2 grown-up daughters, Racheal and Tully and now he's marrying Heather who is younger than them. They can't wrap their heads around this development considering their father is still married to their mother who is in a care facility for dementia.

Things take a dark turn when the daughters start questioning whether they truly know their father. Is there some secrets which they need to know? What seems like a close knit family doesn't seem to be anymore when the layers unravel.

Both Rachel and Tully have secrets of their own and traumas which have not been dealt with.

Sally Hepworth always writes about relevant topics. This book is no different. It includes mental health, sexual abuse, domestic abuse etc.

I could not wait to see how the story unfolded.I wasn't a fan of the end but that did not take away from the book. It was a great read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love Sally Hepworth, and her latest novel was no exception.

A wedding is taking place in a church. Demented prior wife shows up and climbs the dais, disrupting the service. Off-stage, a loud noise ensues and ...(oooops there was an unintentional spoiler in my earlier review)

...several months earlier, two Sisters meet their father in a restaurant for lunch and are struck with the unexpected and unwelcome announcement that pop is getting married to a women their own age. The biggest hitch is that he is already hitched to their mother who is now living in an institution caring for sufferers of dementia.

Over the months resentment toward bride/stepmother-to-be is replaced by a genuine camaraderie, as sisters and future bride reveal troubling pasts and suspicions regarding the true nature of the Patriarch. The characters of the women were interesting and I found myself invested in their stories.

This book goes in an unexpected direction towards the end, and although there is a healing process for some there is a vagueness regarding the true nature of the Father/Groom. This uncertainty is triggered by, among other things, the unreliable assertions of the demented prior wife, and the readers are left to reach their own conclusions regarding the father's/groom's behavior.

Inconclusive endings do not unsettle me, so I was fine with the ambiguity. There is an interesting epilogue that does nothing to resolve the ambiguity but cleverly answers a question that could not be answered within the time-frame of the book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for and ARC and opportunity to review the latest book by one of my favorite authors. It did not disappoint.

Another great book with family drama from Sally Hepworth. There are more layers to the family members that their lives are not as perfect as they seem.

Successful heart surgeon Stephen Aston is getting married again, but his daughters Tully and Rachel are less than thrilled—considering Heather, the bride to be, is their age and he just happens to still be married—to Pam, suffering from dementia in a care facility.

Their wedding ends tragically—in the first chapter—and the novel unfolds in the points of view of Heather, Tully, and Rachel, as family secrets and lies are exposed.

This was my favorite Sally Hepworth yet. She dives into heavy topics—domestic abuse, rape, kleptomania, alcoholism, dementia—and takes the reader on one twisty ride, including the ending, which will make you question everything you just read. Extra points for including Bluey.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for inviting me to read this title in exchange for a review.

Wow, this book left me questioning everything I had just read. What a plot twist. I read this story particularly fast because the characters were well written and full of emotion. Turmoil and triumph in every page. I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

Thank you Netgalley for this arc

I think I have now become a Sally Hepworth super fan after reading this book. Having loved her previous books The Mother in Law and The Other Sister I had high hopes for The Younger Wife. It didn't disappoint. I was hooked from the first chapter, and then the characters reeled me in. I found myself reading past my bedtime in the hopes that I would be able to figure out just what happened when the happy couple went to sign their marriage certificate. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for a review. This book will be published in North American in April 2022.

The Younger Wife follows Rachel and Tully, two sisters who are struggling with their dad divorcing their mom, who is in a care facility for dementia, so that he can marry Heather, a women who is around the same age as his daughters. They are convinced that Heather is a gold digger, after their father's money.... but are things different than they appear?

If you are a fan of Sally Hepworth, this book will not disappoint. From the moment you pick it up, you will not want to put it down as you start to uncover all of the secrets the Aston family has. I will note, I think this book does need a TW for domestic abuse/gaslighting so if you struggle with that, this is not a book I would pick up.

Thanks, Netgalley for the gifted copy of this book.

❄️Five Star NetGalley November Arc Review❄️

The Younger Wife by @sallyhepworth
US publication date: April 5, 2022

Featuring Mr. Frost with his younger wife of 9 years but who’s counting. I loved both the Aussie cover (above) and the US cover (below)

One sentence synopsis; Somebody gets injured at a wedding and we spend the next year finding out who did it and who was hurt.

First of all I want to commend the author with touching on life during Covid 19 but without smacking us in the face with it.

I truly became invested in all of these characters and found likability in all of them which is rare in a domestic suspense novel. I thought about these characters in between each reading session and continue to after I finished.

The humor in the book served it well and I while I had a few questions about a pretty ambiguous ending Sally was so kind to clarify them for me and also explained some of the questions are more defined in the final edit copy of the book.

The book mentions a hot water bottle which I believe to be an Aussie thing but you must read the authors note explaining its symbolism and if you’re lucky enough to catch her aunt Gwen in her stories she’s an absolute doll.

I can’t stop thinking about the chicken lemon feta pie in the book and want to try and create one now.

This is certainly not a thriller so I’d advice readers to go into the book with that in mind but it is top of the top in the domestic suspense or family drama category which is a hard to impress trope for me.

A huge thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for my copy in exchange for my honest review

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️ from Mrs. Frost

#TheYoungerWife #sallyhepworth #netgalley #netgalleynovember #arc #advancedreaderscopy #bookreview #domesticthriller #trophywife #ereader #aussiebooks #novemberkindleclearout